When Carp Fishing is Heavenly

There are days when turbid water, wind, and the devil clouds conspire to make carp fishing darn difficult. There are days when the water is clear, the wind blows lightly and the sky is blue; oh, but wait, there are almost no fish to cast to.  Heck that's even worse than the bad conditions!  I have to remind myself that if carp fishing was easy everyone would be doing it.   

There are days when the conditions are tolerable and there are still very few fish.  There are days when the conditions are tolerable but I'm still seeing a good number of targets and getting hook ups; those are great days.  There are days when the conditions are good and I'm getting lots and lots of shots.  When I can cast to those fish rather than reaching out and just dropping the fly in front of them, those days are heavenly.

On my last trip to the Carp Lodge I fished several days.  One of my days was heavenly.  It sounds like kind of a silly word to describe a session but when I got back to my carpwagon as I was getting my boots off I said to myself, "That was heavenly".  It really was.  I was getting so many shots and hooking up so often I just didn't want to get out of the river to take any pictures where I was holding the fish.  I was fishing a two fly rig with a Chocolate Cherry on top and Black Betty as the dropper.  They took both flies.  There were virtually no clouds, the wind was light and the water was clear enough that I was casting a fair distance to tailing fish.  

All the hook ups made me feel more clever than I actually am.  Lets be objective here--I don't have a 20+ fish day when I only see 10 or 12 fish.  It just isn't possible to catch more fish than I see.  On this day I was blessed to be fishing in a very target rich environment with receptive fish.  Indeed, it was heavenly.  

Not your typical carp

An ordinary Columbia River carp is a common, is about 28-29 inches long and weighs 8-9 pounds.  Some, not many, are smaller but typically not very much smaller.  Some are larger.  Some are way larger.  A Columbia River carp can be 29 inches and weigh more than 9 pounds because his tummy is fat.

An ordinary Columbia common.

This common has more girth so he tips the scale over 10 pounds.  

This Columbia River carp is not ordinary.  He is a mirror and he is longer than 28 inches.  When I see a group of fish and I can tell one of them is a mirror I will virtually always target the mirror.   There was a group of three tailing fish but I could not tell this one was a mirror.  He was the largest of the three so I cast to him.  He picked up Black Betty just like I wanted him to.    He was an extraordinary fish; he reminded me how very fortunate I am to be a carp fisherman.  Damn, I love my river!